Rachel Korn | Poems

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RACHEL KORN / GRIEF POEMS / EAST

East

In this direction my father turned his face,
With his prayer shawl over his head.
Here are the fields and forests
He walked with firm tread.

My father’s murmuring prayer,
That like autumn leaves fell,
Could take my wild blood
My fierce passions quell.

Now I walk here alone,
The last of my race.
My grandfathers with their prayers
Made this a holy place.

And they and their grandfathers, too,
With their prayers and with their plough,
Dug themselves into this soil.
And the bond still holds now.

Under Poland’s poplar trees
They dreamed of the Holy Land,
They planted here the mountains of Gilboa.
Here their Jordan ran.

We are coming from far places,
From ghettoes, bunkers, crematorium fire,
The heirs of six million graves,
And we shall rise high, if not higher.

Translated by Joseph Leftwich

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